New EU project to enhance CD&E waste recycling process
Key objectives include reduced plant footprint, enhanced mobility and increased return on investment from recycling activities
A NEW project – backed by the Eco-Innovation Fund from the European Union – will be operating in Germany from May 2014 with the aim of enhancing the infrastructure for the recycling of construction, demolition and excavation waste in Europe.
The project is a partnership between CDE Global, other materials washing specialists, and the Eco-Innovation Fund. The collaboration will see the introduction of a new construction, demolition and excavation waste recycling system that will deliver on a number of key objectives, including reduced plant footprint, enhanced mobility and an increased return on investment from CD&E waste recycling operations.
The Eco-Innovation Fund supports environmental technologies that have been introduced extensively in one EU member state but have not as yet been widely adopted throughout the European Union. CDE Global had identified an opportunity through this programme as a result of the experience they have gained in the CD&E waste recycling market in the UK over the last 10 years.
‘We currently have more than 20 plants operating in the UK, and the combined diversion from landfill on a yearly basis is over five million tonnes,’ explained Marc Jennings, programme manager at CDE for the project. ‘The Eco-Innovation project presents us with a unique opportunity to introduce a number of innovations to the CD&E waste recycling process and will hopefully lead to more widespread adoption of this technology throughout the European Union.’
The project will operate under the acronym ‘CANDY’ – which stands for CompAct, highly mobile, Next generation, CD&E waste recoverY system. CDE’s application to the Eco-Innovation Fund was successful as a result of several ambitious technical, commercial and environmental objectives.
‘Our application was built on the basis that we want to take the knowledge that we have developed over the last decade and develop the technology further to ensure that we, as an industry, are able to extract maximum value from CD&E waste material by maximizing re-use and minimizing waste,’ said Mr Jennings.
The technical objectives of the project include enhanced mobility and reduced plant footprint for the CD&E waste recycling plant, as well as increasing the quality of washed recycled sand and aggregate products. However, the most significant technical objective is to offer new sludge management technology with a specific focus on maximizing the recovery of process water for recirculation to the washing plant.
Mr Jennings believes that the environmental advantages from the project will be a direct result of the technological innovations that have been introduced. ‘This is a project that will demonstrate the business case for the environmental technologies that we manufacture,’ he added. ‘This is the primary motivation for the substantial investment in R&D that we have made in order to complete the project – but the environmental benefits that will result from CANDY will be hard to ignore.’
